What's The Burning Issue?

If there isn't a burning issue, don't have a meeting. If there is a burning issue, but nobody can express it clearly and concisely, prepare them to do so before you have a meeting.

'US business wastes over 40 billion dollars on mismanaged meetings each year (according to a Hofstra University study). We look for all sorts of ways to cut costs and overlook the most obvious one. We talk too much.' (from page 17 in Ron Hoff's 'Say It In Six')

That Hofstra study has got to be more than 15 years old. I'll bet the bad meeting waste is closer to 80 billion dollars annually these days.

These days, without any board or organization meetings to attend, I participate in three kinds of meetings:

Info Sharing Meetings (where the purpose of the meeting is to share information so we all know who's doing what)

Brainstorming Meetings (a lot of my work is creative development, and I'd include the various 'let's-work-on-it-together' meetings in this category)

Burning Issue Meetings (when there really is something that requires a group to accept and support common action)

I used to try and do my Info Sharing Meetings over lunch or a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. But I work by myself, remote from my colleagues. Nowadays these are phone meetings, that we're working hard to hold to 30 minutes each.

Brainstorming Meetings are increasingly rare, because I just don't want to invest the time and money in gathering people together. And they don't really work over the phone. I used to do at least one or two of these each month. I'll have maybe three Brainstorming Meetings this year.

Burning Issue Meetings happen pretty frequently in our young, mid-sized business, as we adjust to new realities and make course corrections. I need to get better at clearly and concisely framing the burning issue, however.

When I think about it, I guess I've cut back a lot on meetings. That makes me happy, although I feel a little guilty because I know several of my colleagues feel that they work better in group than individually.

I'm fine working on my own, thanks.

DAH is David Anthony Hance at www.DAHplaytime.com

Comments

[Jim Williams]

A tip I learned back in my heavy meeting days was to make it clear what kind of a meeting we were having. It was always frustrating when one person was trying to participate in a brain storming meeting while others were simply there to share information. I attended a remarkably unproductive meeting last week and was reminded how many people lack basic meeting running and meeting participation skills. I'm so glad my heavy meeting days are behind me.

[DAH, David Anthony Hance]

It's a lucky man (or woman) in my reckoning who can either avoid meetings entirely, or can call them or organize them so that they are focused and useful (by which I mean satisfy the reason for having a meeting). You're right, Jim, about people coming to meetings with different ideas about what kind of meeting it will be. I'm missing one like that right now!