Harvard Business Review - HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter

Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, from the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.

HBR Guide to Better Business Writing

HBR Guide to Building Your Business Case

HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business

HBR Guide to Coaching Employees

HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict

HBR Guide to Delivering Effective Feedback

HBR Guide to Finance Basics for Managers

HBR Guide to Getting the Mentoring You Need

HBR Guide to Getting the Right Job

HBR Guide to Getting the Right Work Done

HBR Guide to Leading Teams

HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter

HBR Guide to Managing Stress at Work

HBR Guide to Managing Up and Across

HBR Guide to Negotiating

HBR Guide to Networking

HBR Guide to Office Politics

HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations

HBR Guide to Project Management

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW PRESS

Boston, Massachusetts

HBR Press Quantity Sales Discounts

Harvard Business Review Press titles are available at significant quantity discounts when purchased in bulk for client gifts, sales promotions, and premiums. Special editions, including books with corporate logos, customized covers, and letters from the company or CEO printed in the front matter, as well as excerpts of existing books, can also be created in large quantities for special needs.

For details and discount information for both print and ebook formats, contact

Copyright 2016 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to or mailed to Permissions, Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02163.

The web addresses referenced in this book were live and correct at the time of the books publication but may be subject to change.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Title: HBR guide to making every meeting matter.

Other titles: Harvard business review guides.

Description: Boston, Massachusetts : Harvard Business Review Press, [2016] |

Series: Harvard Business Review guides

Identifiers: LCCN 2016025614 | ISBN 9781633692176 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Business meetingsHandbooks, manuals, etc. | Business meetingsPlanningHandbooks, manuals, etc.

Classification: LCC HF5734.5 .H397 2016 | DDC 658.4/56dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025614

eISBN: 9781633692183

We all know what were supposed to do to run meetings effectively, but we seldom do them well. Why? Perhaps we think its just not worth the time to clarify what we hope to accomplish, craft an agenda, handpick participants, issue prework, and send out follow-up notes that detail key decisions and next steps. So we run meetings off the cuff or saddle participants with an overly ambitious agenda we have no hope of working through. Other meeting problems feel beyond our control. People nod their heads in our decision-making meeting but then show their true feelings with their lack of follow-through. Derailers. Latecomers. Blowhards. Nonparticipants. People who bring their agenda to your meeting.

The best way to prevent or overcome any of these obstacles is thoughtful and thorough preparation. This guide offers tips and scripts for curbing inappropriate behavior and making your meetings easier to prepare for, more efficient to conductand more productive.

Youll learn how to:

• Determine whether you even need to meet
• Prepare a realistic agenda
• Identify why youre meetingand articulate your purpose to attendees
• Orchestrate group decision making
• Prevent implementation roadblocks by giving participants equal airtime
• Cope with chronic latecomers, windbags, and other people problems
• Turn around a bad meeting
• Run any type of meetingfrom a status stand-up to a one-on-one walking check-in to a strategy off-site
• Get the most out of digital meeting tools
• Hold people accountable without hounding or micromanaging
• Keep the momentum going with prompt meeting follow-up

The 5-minute version of everything you need to know.

BY AMY GALLO

A simple tool to help you decide.

BY ELIZABETH GRACE SAUNDERS

We need a more effective vocabulary.

BY AL PITTAMPALLI

Set a purpose by answering two questions.

BY BOB FRISCH AND CARY GREENE

A productive meeting begins here.

BY ROGER SCHWARZ

A filter to help you articulate your purpose.

BY ANTHONY TJAN

Build in time for transition.

BY DAVID SILVERMAN

Give yourself less time, and youll get more done.

BY PETER BREGMAN

Tackle your agenda by beating the buzzer.

BY BOB FRISCH AND CARY GREENE

Probably. A rule of thumb.

Speak now or forever hold your peace.

BY BOB FRISCH AND CARY GREENE

Set expectations for participation.

You have options for gathering input and moving forward.

Jellyfish!

BY BOB FRISCH AND CARY GREENE

Having an explicit purpose will get you back on track.

BY ROGER SCHWARZ

Listen, validate, and redirect.

BY REBECCA KNIGHT

Preserve your timeand the relationship.

BY LIANE DAVEY

Useful phrases to introduce ideas, disagree, and express confusion.

BY JODI GLICKMAN

Dont just sit there and suffer.

BY MELISSA RAFFONI

Break free from the silent majority.

BY JOSEPH GRENNY

Three tactics for turning things around.

BY PAUL AXTELL

With closure.

BY PAUL AXTELL

Make sure everyones on the same page.

BY BOB FRISCH AND CARY GREENE

Just three things.

BY PAUL AXTELL

Rules matter more.

BY KEITH FERRAZZI

Help them step outside their comfort zones.

BY REBECCA KNIGHT

Inconvenience everybody equally.

BY JUNE DELANO

Do away with the same old, same old.

BY MARTHA CRAUMER

Boost your creative thinking and engagement.

BY RUSSELL CLAYTON, CHRISTOPHER THOMAS, AND JACK SMOTHERS

Are they speedy, or sexist, ageist, and height-ist?

BY BOB FRISCH

Stop putting your top people to sleep.

BY BOB FRISCH AND CARY GREENE

Theres an app for that.

BY ALEXANDRA SAMUEL

Editors note: Heres where to start if you need to organize a meeting soonand you dont have a ton of time to prepare, but you want to do it right. When youre not so pressed for time, take a look at the rest of the book, which expands on themes raised here.

We love to hate meetings. And with good reasonthey clog up our days, making it hard to get work done in the gaps, and so many feel like a waste of time.

Paul Axtell, author of Meetings Matter: 8 Powerful Strategies for Remarkable Conversations, says that this is a major pain point for nearly every manager he works with. People are absolutely resigned, he says. They have given up on the hope that it could be different. Axtell and Francesca Gino, author of