Introduction
Meetings are a necessary part of the leadership and management of any business, especially a fast moving organisation. We will always need to meet to solve problems and formulate plans that will pave the way to achievement of our goals. Meetings also allow us to control the cycles of activity and key events that exist in all organisations.

The purpose of a meeting is to bring together the necessary people to make an appropriate and well-informed decision in a timely manner, which leads to action that makes a difference.

Without meetings key decisions may not be made within the right timescale and key activities flounder through lack of coordination. The ability to run good meetings is a rare commodity and yet can make a significant difference to your organisation. Good meetings allow you to address issues properly more quickly and with more impact than your competition. Therefore, good meetings are a source of competitive advantage that is uncommon and difficult to copy.

Before the Meeting
Talking is the means to the end in a meeting, not the end in itself. Meetings are not a place to flex egos, show off, or a passport to an easy day. So organise a meeting only if it’s really necessary; ask yourself whether a quick conversation over a coffee would be quite sufficient? Only invite those who you really need – the importance of a meeting is not determined by the number and seniority of the people in attendance.

PEPS
Many meetings lack focus. Discussions often wander up and down the agenda, and peter-out with no real conclusions being drawn. PEPS are designed to overcome this trait. PEPS stands for:

• P          – Purpose
• EP        – End Products
• S          – Standards

The P, Purpose is the reason why we’re here, the reason why we’re holding the meeting. It is intended to focus minds and keep the discussion focussed on the matter at hand. Examples of Purposes could be:

• To agree the 2008 sales budget
• To identify a solution to the breakdown of the filling machine
• To produce a plan of action for the Growth Project

The purpose statement should be only one or two sentences long. If it’s anymore than that, you’re probably trying to accomplish too much in one meeting and run the risk of muddling up the discussion – in which case organise a separate meeting to discuss those separate subjects. So come up with a short punchy statement that describes what you want people to come together to achieve.

The EP, End Products, are the outcomes that we should aim to produce from the meeting. Examples of End Products are:

• An agreed set of figures for the 2008 sales budget
• A plan of action to get the filling machine back on line
• An defined plan of action that will allow achievement of the Growth Project goals

The End Products may also include some less tangible, softer outcomes such as:

• A shared commitment to achieve our goals
• A common understanding regarding how to resolve this issue

There will probably be a greater number of End Products than Purposes, and typically the meeting will identify a variety of End Products that must be fulfilled in order to achieve the Purpose.

The S, Standards, cover the manner in which the meeting will be conducted. For instance:

• The behavioural standards that are expected – listening, respectful, patient, bias for action
• The mindset that is required – creative, open-minded, willingness to consider something unconventional, open honest candid.
• The good habits that are required – step forward, contribute, be part of the solution, punctuality
• The bad habits which are forbidden – circling, counter-proposing, talking over the top of others, bringing your ego into the room.

Sometimes it’s difficult to think of something new, appropriate or original here. However, it is important to avoid recycling the same old Standards every time as they will become predictable and ignored. So try to think of something fresh and appropriate. If the meeting will be challenging, then tell people they need to be prepared to feel uncomfortable, to consider radical solutions, or to be challenged. If the meeting must act quickly then tell people that they need to stick to business, remain focussed, and have a bias for action. If the subject is sensitive then empathy and compassion may be appropriate.

It is best practice to issue the PEPS with the invitation to attend the meeting. Issuing the PEPS before the meeting allows people to come to the meeting properly prepared and also decide whether they really need to be there. If you can’t get the PEPS prepared when you’re organising the meeting, do you really know why you want the meeting? As an invited attendee you should feel comfortable not accepting an invitation to a meeting which has no PEPS or delaying your acceptance of the invitation until the PEPS are issued. This will promote best practice.

The PEPS will often and should often replace the agenda if the meeting has only 1 or 2 subjects to discuss. It is my experience that good meetings often don’t have an agenda and that bad meetings often have long agendas. The longer the agenda the more difficult it becomes to maintain a purposeful focus. An agenda will remain necessary if the meeting is, for instance, a review of a project and needs to follow a set sequence of subjects. However, an agenda should never replace the PEPS – every meeting should have PEPS.

Inviting Attendees
Most businesses these days use Microsoft Outlook or a similar software product to control diaries and schedule meetings. Use these facilities and invite your attendees with this software. Check their diaries beforehand to be sure you’re choosing a date for the meeting when all the attendees are available. Chase up people who’ve not accepted their invitation a couple of days before the meeting takes place and get their confirmation that they’ll be there. Your meeting is going to be pretty weak if you don’t know who is coming and who isn’t, and ultimately you might not have enough people to hold a full discussion and make a decision. If someone declines the meeting but has a space in their diary, challenge this. Tell them why you need them at the meeting, find out why they declined and reach a compromise – for instance: rearrange the meeting to another date, accept a substitute, or get their commitment to abide by whatever decision the meeting makes.

If you are invited to a meeting then show respect for the person who has invited you. They need to hold the meeting for what is probably a good reason and they feel that they need you to participate. If you don’t feel that you need to be there, then tell the organiser why you don’t feel you need to participate. And in all instances respond promptly. You all know what it’s like to try to organise a meeting and how frustrating this becomes when invitees don’t confirm whether they’re coming or not.

At the Meeting
Step 1: Appoint Roles
At the start of a meeting the first step should be to appoint a Facilitator, Scribe and Timekeeper. It is common practice for the person who called the meeting to aim to fill all of these roles and this is generally not a good idea. It is difficult to chair a meeting, remain focussed on taking accurate minutes, ensure that the meeting is progressing at a satisfactory pace, and also contribute to the discussion. So it is best to split these roles

If the meeting is discussing a particularly complex or difficult subject, or involves resolving conflict or opposing points of view, then it is wise to appoint an impartial facilitator whose day job does not bring them into much contact with the issue being discussed. This person is then able to conduct and steer the meeting in an objective and unbiased manner. The Facilitator’s role is to ensure that the

• The PEPS are understood and accepted
• That the discussions remain focussed
• The meeting process is productive
• The meeting progresses at a pace that will allow its business to be concluded within the allotted time
• That conflicts are resolved
• That decisions are made
• That the PEPS of the meeting are achieved

The Scribe’s role is to take accurate minutes of the meeting – what was agreed and what actions will be taken. More is written regarding the minutes of a meeting further later in this document. When the scribe is recording an agreement or an action, they should read back to the meeting what they have written so that the attendees can confirm their agreement. This will prevent subsequent retractions (for example: “I didn’t agree to that”, “that’s not what I said”) and ensure that the meeting makes firm commitments.

The role of the Timekeeper is to remind attendees of how much of the allotted time is left. We have all attended and been very frustrated by meetings that ramble on, fail to make satisfactory progress, and consequently overrun. By reminding the attendees of the time remaining the Timekeeper can help to keep people focussed on the Purpose and End Products. The Timekeeper should notify the attendees of the time remaining as follows:

• The number of full hours remaining
• When 30 minutes are remaining
• When 20 minutes are remaining – At this point the meeting needs to begin to wrap up. Conclusions need to be drawn; actions allocated and follow up agreed.
• When 10 minutes remaining – At this point it is time to review the PEPS and identify the Successes and Improvers (of which more is written later).

Step 2: Review the PEPS
After appointing the Facilitator, Scribe and Timekeeper, start with a simple review of the PEPS to ensure that everyone understands why they’re here and what is expected. This will allow everyone to be sure that their attendance is needed and identify whether anyone else needed in order to make the necessary decisions. The facilitator should write the PEPS up on a flip-chart if one is available. In any event every attendee should be able to look at a read the PEPS as the facilitator runs through them. The facilitator will then ask the group to agree to the PEPS and/or make any necessary changes.

Step 3: Review the minutes of previous meeting
If the meeting is one in a series – e.g. a management meeting, a project review, or follow-up to an earlier meeting – then there will be (or should be) minutes from the previous meeting. The facilitator will start the meeting with a review of the actions. Don’t unnecessarily revisit and open up what has already been agreed. It’s been agreed. Move on. But do take the time to challenge deviation away from the agreed actions. Hold your colleagues accountable to their commitments and support them in completing their actions.

In reviewing the actions the facilitator should determine for each action

• If the action is due to have been completed, whether it has been completed satisfactorily?
• If the action is overdue the facilitator should establish whether there are genuine difficulties getting in the way of completing this action, what can be done to overcome these, and by when?
• What progress is being made with actions that are not due for completion yet, and whether any corrective action is required to bring the action in on time?

Step 4: Discuss the business of the meeting
At this point the meeting can start to discussion of the subject of the meeting. Often the best place to start is with the person who called the meeting describing their view of the issue. After the person who called the meeting has completed their commentary on the subject of the meeting the discussion will progress through the following basic stages:

1. The attendees add more information regarding the subject to the discussion
2. When enough information is available actions can be formulated
3. When the potential actions have been explored a commitment to a specific action is made
4. The method of follow-up is agreed (e.g. a review meeting)
5. The meeting closes.

• What do we know, and
• What do we need to know

In pulling together ‘What do we know’ use a flipchart. Ask people in the room to say what they know about the problem and get the scribe to write this on the flipchart. This will include facts such as: the batch numbers affected, when the batches were produced, exactly what the customer has complained about, who said what to who and when, etc. But be careful to listen for opinions and rule them out. Only facts can be added to the flipchart.

Once the meeting has established ‘What do we know’, it can then go on to identify ‘What do we need to know’ in order to resolve the problem. Similarly ‘What do we need to know’ is about facts – what facts you need to collect in order to solve the problem. For instance: where the contaminated stock is, when did this happen, were there any witnesses, etc. Once this is complete then allocate names to each of the things you need to know – who will go out and find the facts. This then forms a strong basis for problem solving. Problems can’t be resolved when all you have is opinion – facts are essential.

Productive and Non-Productive Behaviours
As mentioned above, once the preliminaries are complete and a discussion of the subject of the meeting is underway, attendees add their own information and opinions regarding the subject to the discussion. Think of this as like building a pile of information on the table. A decision can’t be taken until this pile is big enough – until there is enough information to make an informed and appropriate decision. However, what often happens in meetings is that more and more information is added to the pile even after sufficient information has been collected to allow a decision to be made and no one appears to want to volunteer a suggested solution. This is called cycling.

Cycling is apparent when the discussion becomes repetitive, when no new information is forthcoming and when the discussion has become tedious. When the meeting starts to cycle the facilitator (or any other attendee) should inform the meeting that it is cycling and ask the attendees to enter the decision making phase.

At this point another form of unproductive behaviour can emerge: counter-proposing. Counter-proposing occurs when a suggestion is made regarding a course of action or decision and before the proposal has been given full consideration another attendee offers an alternative suggestion. The discussion then moves from the first proposal to the second proposal without giving full consideration to the first. Typically this process continues and numerous proposals are overridden without proper consideration. The consequence of this is that the meeting struggles to come to a conclusion and overruns.

The countermeasure is for the facilitator (or any other attendee) to interrupt the counter-proposer and state:

• We are counter-proposing. There is already a proposal on the table that we haven’t finished discussing yet. We should discuss this proposal in full first and rule it in or rule it out. If we rule it out, we will then consider your proposal. If we rule it in we have no need for further proposals.

A common and better known unproductive behaviour is dominating. Dominating occurs when one or more attendee attempts to dominate the discussion, pushing their point of view forcefully and failing to allow quieter less vocal attendees participate. This is one of the main reasons why the meeting has a facilitator. All participants should understand that the facilitator has the right and authority to ask any attendee to give space to other attendees and park their point of view. Each individual’s responsibility is to act considerately and avoid dominating behaviour. No one person has a monopoly in being right.

Another form of unproductive behaviour that is again very common: splintering. Splintering occurs when the meeting separates into subgroups and more than one discussion ensues. Typically this is because some of the attendees do not agree with main body of the discussion or when the meeting is cycling. When this occurs the facilitator or any other person should halt proceedings and demand that the group return to a single discussion. The splinter group should be asked, at an appropriate juncture, to share their discussion with the whole group so that their point-of-view is brought into the open for consideration by all.

Often the discussion in a meeting will wander off track on to a different subject. This new subject may be included elsewhere in the PEPS or agenda of the meeting, or perhaps isn’t relevant to the meeting at all. In any event, if this discussion of this new subject is getting in the way of the existing discussion then the new subject must be parked. If the subject is relevant to the meeting then the new subject should be reintroduced at an appropriate point in the meeting. If it’s not relevant to the meeting then the interested parties should organise a discussion at a separate time.

Step 5: Closing
No later than ten minutes before the time the meeting is due close the timekeeper will advise the meeting that it’s time to close. The first step of the close out is to review the PEPS of the meeting and ask:

• Have we achieved the Purpose of the meeting? If any or all of the attendees feel that the Purpose has not been achieved then the facilitator should lead a discussion to identify what aspects of the Purpose have not been fulfilled. If there is not time available fulfil the purpose of the meeting then the meeting must focus on agreeing how and when its business will be completed.
• Have we achieved the End Products? Again, if any or all of the attendees feel that the End Products have not been achieved then the facilitator should lead a discussion to identify what aspects of the End Products have not been fulfilled. If there is not time available to complete the meeting then the meeting must focus on agreeing how and when its business will be completed.

The second step is to identify the Successes and Improvers.

• Successes are the things that were done well in the meeting. This might be that cycling was avoided, that a particularly creative solution has been identified, or that the dominant attendees were successful in allowing the quieter attendees to participate. It’s important to identify and capture the successes so that you can repeat them in the future.
• Improvers are the things that didn’t go so well and could be done better next time. This might include that there was some counter-proposing, that the meeting splintered, or that the discussions lost focus and went off track. It is helpful to view these improvers not as failings but more as opportunities for improvement as a positive approach will achieve more than a negative approach.

After the Meeting - Minutes
The primary purpose of the minutes is to record what was agreed and the actions that will be taken. The minutes should not be rambling record of who said what. It may sometimes be necessary to record some of the content of discussions particularly if the discussion in contentious. However, usually it is sufficient to record only the actions and what was agreed. Thus the minutes become a reference point for resolve subsequent disagreements and communicating agreements to other relevant people. Actions need to be recorded with a precise statement of what will be done, who will do it and by when. Whilst each person who is allocated an action should take personal responsibility for completing their actions on time, the organiser of the meeting retains overall responsibility for ensuring that the outcomes of the meeting are progressed successfully and that matters are brought to a close.

Finally, if all this seems like hard work then please remember that you will not need to apply all of this to all of your meetings. However, this does not mean that you can get away with applying none of it to all of your meetings. If you do then you can look forward to continuing to have to endure the haphazard, unproductive and time-wasting approach that is probably the norm.