The Surprising Science of Meetings

by Steven G Rogelberg

  Let me close this technique with a piece of advice I shared at Siemens in a leadership development workshop I taught on meetings. I laid it out as a hypothetical conversation with a potential attendee who a meeting leader doesn’t think is really essential to the meeting. At the same time, the meeting leader doesn’t want to alienate the person:

  MEETING LEADER: Jack, as you know, we are having a meeting to discuss initiative X. I am very sensitive about honoring your time. As I reflect on the agenda, I don’t think your attendance is required per se. I also don’t want you to feel left out. I would like to propose the following. I will make sure a very good set of notes is taken. I will then share the notes with you. If after reading the notes you think you would like to come to future meetings, we can definitely revisit this. Otherwise, I can just keep you in the loop. Seem reasonable? However, if you have any input on this topic, please just email me by Wednesday, and I will share it at the meeting.

  The outcome of this is almost unequivocally just appreciation and a continued desire to stay in the loop rather than attend. The bottom line is, by inviting input, by sharing meeting notes, and by keeping future invitations on the table, you mitigate others’ feelings of isolation. Feelings of gratitude around having additional time, however, are amplified.

  The fifth and final technique for decreasing meeting size is called “representative voices.” In this approach the meeting leader asks certain individuals to explicitly represent a set of stakeholders; this becomes an additional meeting role the individual takes on. For example, one person, in addition to his or her own perspective, represents the voices of those in, say, Marketing and Sales. In this role, the representative is expected to connect with folks in that function before the meeting, keep them in the loop afterward, and ask for input as needed on an ongoing basis. This serves to keep meeting size down, but also supports feelings of inclusiveness. From my experience, when people are asked explicitly to take on a role like this and, importantly, it is communicated to all stakeholders, they usually do it in an engaged manner.

  Some research indirectly speaks to this. Here is an example from outside the business context. A recent study published in the journal Psychology, Crime & Law examined how roles played out at a bus stop. Picture this: a confederate arrives and places a bag down before leaving to go to the ATM close by. The confederate either asks someone at the bus stop to watch his bag (direct commitment), asks everyone to just watch his bag (indirect commitment), or does not say anything and just goes to the ATM (control condition). Thirty seconds later, a different confederate walks up, picks up the bag, and quickly walks away in the opposite direction of the “victim.” There were 150 participants observed. In the control condition (where no one was asked either directly or indirectly), someone intervened only 34 percent of the time. In the indirect commitment condition, someone intervened 56 percent of the time. In the direct commitment condition, however, someone intervened 88 percent of the time. Explicitly, being assigned a direct role resulted in more commitment to action.

  Conclusion

  Any time an unneeded employee is not at a meeting, you are giving the kindest gift one can give—the gift of time (both to the employee who doesn’t have to attend the meeting and to the meeting attendees who are not wasting as much time tripping over unnecessary voices). Beyond this, you are taking steps to decrease frustration (again, of all parties), not to mention saving the company money by giving folks the ability to recoup lost time. But never forget the one thing people dislike more than meetings: not being invited to a meeting. Thus, by leveraging the techniques described in this chapter, not only will you manage meeting size more strategically, but also, most importantly, you will achieve this without risking isolation and exclusion of others.

  Takeaways

  1. Although it may seem that as meetings increase in size they would be more effective because of the greater number of ideas, resources, and brainpower, research shows that, unfortunately, this is not the case. To the contrary, having too many meeting attendees can actually reduce effectiveness because there can be too many voices, logistical challenges, and even social loafing.

  2. While having too many attendees can be problematic, it is also important to realize that employees not receiving a meeting invitation can feel excluded. In fact, as we know from previous chapters, there is an innate need for humans to meet; thus, cutting down the invite list—in an effort to reduce confusion—can actually result in some unhappy employees.

  3. In an attempt to advise on the “right” number of meeting attendees, I first recommend consulting your meeting goals to help you determine all the relevant and necessary parties. Thinking about who the key decision makers and stakeholders are for accomplishing each goal will help you make decisions about the invite list.

  4. In addition to thinking through the goals of each meeting, consider a timed-agenda approach; this technique involves inviting different groups of employees to attend only a certain portion of a meeting that is most relevant to them. Another technique designed to make others not invited to the meeting feel included is to consult them before the meeting to get their input. This helps them feel involved, without being in the meeting itself.

  5. The final ideas I propose for keeping meetings to a manageable size (while preventing feelings of exclusion) are taking excellent notes and choosing “representative voices.” Meeting notes should be taken in real time, distributed to all relevant parties following the meeting, and should include owners of action items. The other, the “voices” technique, involves assigning a meeting attendee to represent the collective interests of a group of stakeholders, such as a department, that is not invited to the meeting.

  Chapter 7

  DON’T GET TOO COMFORTABLE IN THAT CHAIR

  Humans and habitual behaviors go hand in hand. Routines and rituals consciously and unconsciously fill our days, our months, our years. Duke University professors David Neal, Wendy Wood, and Jeffrey Quinn wrote a terrific review piece on the topic of habits in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science. After reviewing the research literature, they found that roughly 45 percent of daily behaviors are repeated almost every day in the same location. Forty-five percent! Habitual behavior extends to collectives as well, be it in groups or even organizations.

  Habits or routines aren’t necessarily bad. Habits can be highly functional, enabling, and effective. The key, however, is that given our proclivity as individuals and as groups to be habitual, we may forget the importance of “mixing things up” and trying new things. In fact, we may not even be aware that we have become quite fixed in our approaches.

  How does this apply to meetings? Leaders engage in a host of habitual meeting behaviors. For a moment, let’s put aside the possibility that the meeting itself could, in fact, be occurring just out of habit. Beyond this, the meeting may be starting and ending at the same time, on the same day, with attendees sitting in the places they always sit in, in the same meeting room, and following the same basic agenda they always follow—all just another product of habit. In this chapter, I will discuss minor interventions to break meeting rhythms to create new energy and new dynamics and raise attendee enthusiasm. This can involve a variety of things, ranging from changing seats to ditching the seats altogether. However, please note, I am not at all advocating that these alternatives be used 100 percent of the time; doing so would, ironically, turn breaking the habit into a new habit. What I am advocating is that meeting leaders be sensitive to rituals becoming ruts, leading to stagnation. A host of ideas for keeping meetings “fresh” and stimulating are presented in the next sections.

  The Chair Has More Power Than You Think

  Reflect on the last dinner party you attended. Do you remember where you sat? Whether you do or you don’t, I can assure you that where you sat at the table directly affected your experience of the event: whom you spoke to, how much you spoke, and maybe even what you ate (e.g., if the mashed potatoes were located at the other end of the tabl
e). Table seating matters in meetings as well. Research demonstrates that emergence into leadership positions is influenced by seating location (e.g., it is culturally constructed that the head of the table is a leadership position), and where we sit influences communication flow and whom we are more prone to disagree with. I would argue that even without knowing anything about the individuals in the meeting, a meetings researcher could predict meeting dynamics with decent accuracy by just looking at a photo of the attendees around the table. And, at the same time, we do know that people tend to gravitate to where they sat last. For example, when I teach a class, I can predict with near certainty which seats students will be sitting in on the last day of class (sixteen weeks later) based on where they sit the first day of class. When it comes to seating, we do tend to be creatures of habit.

  The dynamics created by seating location do not necessarily derail a meeting. But seating can affect meeting effectiveness, critical decision-making, creativity, enjoyment, and energy. Let me illustrate:

  Person A and person F are in privileged speaking locations representing either the head or the foot of the table; they likely will communicate the most given that these positions typically represent leadership roles. This arrangement is fine if their expertise is most important. But if they are misinformed or have bad ideas, their exaggerated influence can be detrimental. Persons C and D will likely have fewer disagreements sitting directly next to one another (e.g., we are more likely to speak and to express disagreement to those sitting opposite us than those directly to our right or left) and may even be more likely to form a de facto alliance of sorts. This is fine if they share similar perspectives. But if their opinions differ, it might benefit the meeting if those differences of opinion are actually discussed—it is often the case that through a discussion of differences a better, possibly synergistic, solution will emerge (i.e., constructive conflict around ideas is a good thing for a meeting). Person J may wind up not participating much in the meeting, especially if person A is the leader. This is fine if person J doesn’t really have ideas or much to contribute. But if her thoughts are key to the success of the meeting, this may undermine the meeting’s effectiveness.

  The takeaway from this seating analysis is not that the meeting leader needs to have a heavy hand in socially engineering the meeting experience, but that having some fluidity in seating is useful so that, over time, a full range of dynamics is experienced in the meeting. This, in turn, serves to prevent pigeonholing folks, helps to keep things fresh and stimulating, promotes different types of communication patterns, and, overall, prevents the meeting experience from becoming stale. The meeting leader can initiate this by simply creating a culture where attendees change seating locations every meeting or at least periodically. Folks will likely grumble—after all, we do gravitate toward predictability—but the meeting leader can just explain that the change is an effort to keep things interesting, stimulating, and “fun.” For instance, at each meeting of a board of directors I serve on, our name placards are shuffled and placed in different locations around the conference room. I definitely have experienced the value of this, not only from changing dynamics but also from forming relationships with a greater range of people. Another way for a leader to alter seating arrangements, without people fully realizing it, is to pick different locations, with different table or seating arrangements, for holding the meeting. A change of scenery can be energizing in and of itself.

  Somewhat related to the discussion of seating position, I want to introduce another way that a seat can influence the dynamics in a meeting: the use of an empty chair. Research on physical cues such as posters and signs suggests that these cues can be effective prompts in influencing a range of behaviors, from the purchasing of goods, to not smoking, to hand washing, to using the stairs. Of course, the cue—like a poster or sign—needs to be salient and noticeable in order to work. In this vein, some companies have implemented the empty meeting chair—an approach that appears to have started at Amazon. This empty chair is a noticeable, physical cue that is meant to symbolically represent the need to recognize the customer in all that is said and discussed. Other companies use the chair to represent other key stakeholders that may not be present (e.g., a supplier). Bottom line: the physical cue of an empty chair can help attendees consider alternative perspectives during the meeting.

  The next two techniques, the walking meeting and the standing meeting, throw chairs out the window altogether and provide a different perspective on the topic.

  A Walking Meeting

  The walking meeting is a mobile meeting designed for two to three, and maybe up to four individuals. We can find many companies embracing the notion of a walking meeting. The biography of Steve Jobs made reference to his passion for taking long walks as a way to have a serious conversation. Other CEOs who use and advocate walking meetings are folks like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, and former president Barack Obama. Walking meetings are a staple at LinkedIn: folks circle around a twenty- to twenty-five-minute looped path in their California headquarters. It is certainly not just high-profile companies that engage in this practice; this practice can be found at small, medium-sized, and large organizations. This frequent use raises the question: does research support this meeting practice?

  Walking is healthy. Headlines abound regarding the health benefits of walking: less heart disease, greater weight control, decreased risk for various cancers and dementia, lower cholesterol, and strengthened bones and muscles. Moving beyond physical benefits, research shows a link between outdoor exercise and well-being. Inc. magazine reported on an internal study done at Johnson & Johnson on the benefits of walking meetings. Vice president Jack Groppel noted that “in the studies that we did, after 90 days of doing [walking meetings], people felt increased amounts of energy, they felt increased focus, they felt improved engagement.”

  More energy and engagement should certainly benefit the meeting itself and, in turn, may elevate focus and creativity. With regard to the latter, Russell Clayton, assistant professor of management at Saint Leo University, discusses in Harvard Business Review some research he did with colleagues on walking meetings involving one hundred and fifty working adults in the United States. The people in the walking meetings were 8.5 percent more likely to report high levels of engagement. Further, the people who participated in walking meetings reported being more creative at work. Although these observed effects were small, if you take into consideration all of the meetings one person attends, compounded across people and time, even small effects make a big difference.

  Furthermore, Stanford University researchers, in perhaps the most rigorous study to date on this topic, examined the link between walking and creativity; the results of this research were recently published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. They conducted four experiments examining the effect of walking on creative ideation in real time, but also shortly after the walk. The experiments varied: participants walked inside (on a treadmill) or outside, and these groups were also compared to participants sitting either inside or outside. One of the tasks examined was called the Guilford Alternative Uses (GAU) task. This task asks participants to find alternative uses for common items. For example, in my team creativity workshop, I have attendees generate alternative uses for, say, a paper clip. Creative solutions like a zipper replacement, hair clip, and fishing hook come up. In the Stanford study, walking outside yielded the greatest positive creativity boost across all four conditions. For example, the researchers found that when performing the GAU, over 80 percent of the participants were more creative when walking than when seated, and they were most creative when walking outside. Taken together, it appears that walking is not only good for the individual’s mind and body but also results in greater potential for innovative thinking.

  Advocates of walking meetings further argue that these meetings enhance meeting outcomes for a variety of other reasons. First, walking meetings can enhance
communication in that there is less ability to multitask on the phone or laptop, which results in greater presence and focus. Others contend that walking helps break down formalities, decreases inhibitions, and encourages less filtered communication. In the Inc. article mentioned previously, Hiket Ersek, CEO of Western Union, was quoted as saying, “People become much more relaxed, and they talk from their hearts if you go for a walk with them. And they get to the point they want to make much more quickly.”

  The takeaway from this discussion is not that all conference rooms should be abolished. There are certainly times when projectors, whiteboards, and tables are needed. There are also times when the content of the meeting does not lend itself to a walking conversation (e.g., a disciplinary meeting). Here are some other key usage notes associated with walking meetings: