Could the meeting be an email?

Colleagues, 

As we are adapting to hybrid work schedules and struggles with communication with all staff members and divisions. We often feel meetings allow us the opportunity to share important information - but are they really effective? 

I invite you to review the article Could this meeting have been an email? Employees are over meetings. Now companies are too. Consider sharing your strategies for communication with staff and how you determine if it's a meeting or an email. 

I look forward to the discussion. 

Kathy Tracey

Comments

The four suggestions make sense with my comments in bold:

"We asked Laker for some tips on how to have the right meetings. He said:"

  • Have a purpose for each meeting before scheduling it. Make sure the objectives are clearly defined. These meetings are normally intended as decision making meetings so there is more focus. In some cases you can even go further than stating the objectives and provide specific proposals for achieving the objective or options for doing so. This can provide more focus and speed up the decision process.
  • Ask yourself if the information could be communicated in another way such as an email or a Slack thread. I have found it typically a waste of time to have a meeting to just share information, so the two suggestions make a lot of sense.
  • Keep meetings short and focused. Try to schedule meetings for the exact amount of time needed and make sure that everyone sticks to the agenda. Sticking to the agenda usually means that a set of standards or criteria for running meetings should be agreed to by a company, project team etc. This helps establish a more effective and collaborative culture.
  • Limit the number of people attending a meeting and only include those who need to be there. This would usually mean those who have to carry out or support decisions made at the meeting.

Joe Coffee, Program Manager, Law and Public Safety Education Network

www.lapsen.org

 

Joe and all, 

I agree with everything you shared! As I see it, there are two distinct issues facing program administrators and leaders. The first issue is ensuring all stakeholders have access to the same information at the same time. But often, people are multi-tasking, checking emails or texting during a meeting that is limited to pushing out information.

The second issue is planning effective meetings with a clear purpose, a defined agenda, and inclusive strategies for all staff members to participate and engage. To be transparent - I often strive for this goal, and more than I'd like to admit, I lead meetings that could have been an email. 

However, I struggle with the email communication as a way to push out information because we need to close the feedback loop. I'd love to hear suggestions about planning effective meetings and closing the feedback loop for email communication. 

Kathy Tracey