How Civil Servants Can Make Meetings More Result-Oriented
““...after the meeting, take time to reflect. Review if the purposes of the meeting were met, what went well, and what did not go so well. Identify areas of improvement and generate a set of do’s and don’ts for future meetings.””
Civil servants consider meetings a way of life.
Ballpark estimates suggest that they spend nearly 40% of their office time in meetings. These examples illustrate the need to overcome certain mindsets to make meetings more result-oriented:
Long meetings are always good
A civil servant under training was sent to a district to learn how to do flood relief operations. The Collector held 6-10 hour-long meetings with a flood knocking at the doorstep.
Meetings do not require preparation
A State level officer would never carry any notes to a meeting or ever prepare for one. The belief was that civil servants are not required to prepare for meetings.
Straying from the agenda is a “given”
A meeting held by a civil servant in Delhi lost focus and most of the time was spent discussing the style of the PowerPoint presentation (e.g. bold font, italics, etc.).
There are well-established principles to conduct result-oriented meetings based on civil servants’ experiences, and the work of executive coaches. These principles can be summarized as follows:
The purpose of a meeting is to bring together several people together.
So, start by asking if bringing together so many people is required.
Can telephone chats, emails, shared documents, or WhatsApp not accomplish the purposes of the meeting?
If a meeting is necessary, then can a virtual meeting be done with some attending in-person and others remotely? In case the answer is no, then only a meeting should be organized. At the same time, keep in mind to have at least two, or even three, meeting-free days during the week. Remember that the Covid-19 dictum: “Zoom, eat, sleep, repeat” - is no longer that relevant.
Having decided to call a meeting, prepare, prepare, and prepare. A good meeting starts even before it actually takes place, and the first requirement is to organize your thoughts. You can also try writing down the thoughts you plan to discuss in a meeting. This will help you see the cadence in how you deliver ideas.
Make efforts to compress your thoughts: Once you establish a rhythm for compressing your thoughts, you won’t need to take much time to prepare and practice. Imagine this: if you were tweeting and facing a character limit, how would you cut your message down to its essence? This will ensure that you say what is necessary and impactful. Remember that the quality of a meeting is determined by the quality of questions you ask.
Decide how much you would like to monopolize the conversation in the meeting. Remember that when you dominate the conversation in meetings, other members gradually tune you out with frustration setting in all around. If you notice you have a pattern of talking over others, it’s time for a reset, and make an effort to prioritize listening over talking. This can be done by following some simple rules, for example: “I won’t speak until at least two other people in the meeting have shared their input,”, “I will limit my sharing to one point”, or, “I will time myself and allow only three minutes of speaking.” Of course, this does not work all the time and sometimes, your input will be most required and you may have to dominate the meeting. But for routine meetings, practice pulling back and letting others have the floor.
Civil servants possess diverse experiences and generate a wealth of ideas, leading to the tendency to ramble when describing the ideas.
In meetings, they come across as scattered and ill-prepared. Consider other ways to organize your ideas and communicate them to audiences. For example, can you keep a running list of your brilliant insights on your computer so you’re better prepared to share them in the next meeting? Or, can you share ideas in a follow-up email or an internal chat platform?
Guard against the following meeting derailers:
1. Gravity problems – Start to discuss a challenge or issue that is unsolvable at the level of the meeting. Suppose a meeting is called to review the status delivery of measures (e.g. iron tablets, hot cooked meals) to reduce anemia in pregnant women - a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). During discussions, one member questions the blood count used to women as anemic, while the meeting was called to review the performance of delivery of interventions to reduce anemia in pregnant women. For this meeting, this is an unsolvable issue and leads to diversion of time, mental energy, and motivation away from solvable issues;
2. Overgeneralization – When a few pregnant women do not come to take hot cooked meals in anganwadis, a member states that all women do not want to come to anganwadis. This generalization derails the conversation, causing the meeting to focus on defending the activity of providing hot cooked meals, rather than trying to address ways to bring more women to anganwadis to eat hot cooked meals;
3. Catastrophizing – One member raises the issue of a minor budget cut or delays in the release of funds and claims that it will result in massive project delays. The alarmism distracts the team from discussing practical solutions for managing the reduced budget; and
4. “Squirrel chasing” – Some members have difficulty staying focused on the purpose of the meeting and introduce unrelated tangents (i.e. squirrels). For example, one member starts a discussion on the method of resting followed to identify anemic women. Although relevant to the overall programme, it is unrelated to the meeting’s focus and the interjections distract the meeting. When squirrels are chased, they lead to waste of time and derail the aim of the meeting.
During meeting, taking breaks increases the productivity of meetings, as determined by Microsoft’s Human Factors Lab. Incorporate short 10-minute breaks in long meetings to reduce stress, and enhance focus and engagement. When scheduling back-to-back meetings, it is advisable to plan for each meeting to end 10 minutes early.
Finally, after the meeting, take time to reflect. Review if the purposes of the meeting were met, what went well, and what did not go so well. Identify areas of improvement and generate a set of do’s and don’ts for future meetings.
By adopting these principles and strategies, civil servants can enhance the effectiveness and productivity of their meetings.
