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Eric Brown wrote a piece about Meetings & Trust in his blog Eric Brown’s Blog discussing how a manager had a pre-meeting to a meeting to “shape” what information was to be discussed during that meeting with the boss’s superiors.  I agree there are some trust issues with that manager and numerous meetings requested by the boss can be a sign of a lack of trust.  Additionally,  it could be a control issue.  I know that control and trust are related, but the manager may be trusting of his people but be a micro-manager/dominant control freak who just can’t help himself.  The manager could also just like to hear himself talk or feel he can justify his job more by these “important” meetings.  It could be some kind of departmental power play to show everyone who’s the boss.  Also, I know people who think that holding meetings will convince others how important and powerful they are (they aren’t, but they overcompensate for their inadequacies).

I have to say that I am lucky that I haven’t experienced that kind of manager that Eric discusses in his posting.  However, I do work at a company who is in love with meetings.  Sometimes we do have meetings to discuss having meetings. Very few meetings have a listed agenda, about 1-2% I would say.  It never starts on time and the participants usually wander off topic –if we even know what the topic is.  If I could cope with it, I could attend enough meetings every week that I wouldn’t ever get anything else done but attend meetings and be fully justified in doing so.   However, I think we talk too much and do too little. 

It seems that some people actually do like meetings.  In this LA Times article the author discusses a study about people’s feelings toward meetings.  Okay, maybe I shouldn’t say that I hate all meetings, just the unproductive ones.  Regrettably, the unproductive ones outnumber the productive ones.  The article as lists some suggestions to make meetings more productive.  I know we could do better with our meetings by taking this advice.

• Always provide an agenda and distribute it before the meeting.
• Set realistic goals and objectives for each meeting.
• Don’t include everyone. Attend the meeting, or require attendance for the meeting, only if the information is relevant.
• Reduce the number of meetings, meet only when necessary and make it easy for employees to opt out of participating if their attendance is not critical.
• Provide meeting feedback and reflect on that feedback as a group.
• Record and distribute minutes for each meeting.
• Break into smaller groups for brainstorming.
• Distribute appropriate information before the meeting via e-mail, instead of during the meeting.
• Pay attention to timing and impose a time limit; meetings that are shorter and that start and end on time are less disruptive for employees.

On the effectivivemeetings.com website the have a 10 commandments section of meeting basics.  The site’s “commandments” are similar to the ones from the LA Times article with a few good additions.

• Praise in Public, Criticize in Private
• Do Not Convene Meetings Outside of Normal Business Hours
• Do Not Use Group Pressure to Logroll Conclusions
• Do Not Use Meetings to Destroy Others’ Careers
• Keep the Personal and the Corporate Distinct
• Remember that the Best Model for Meetings Is Democracy, Not Monarchy
• Terminate a Regularly Scheduled Meeting When Its Purpose for Being No Longer Exists

 Check out the related articles on Eric’s page because they have some good points about managing meetings and calculating the costs of those meetings.  I have actually heard that some companies require an agenda, justification, and a total cost for the meeting be provided for a meeting to be approved.  I’m not sure how productive that whole process is, but I’m sure it will make having useless meetings much harder.

In an effort to define, to me, what have been some abstract terms in the business and IS/IT world, I thought I would start posting some reference material. I have discovered some of this through one of the classes I am currently taking on Information Systems Management.  Feel free to comment, suggest additions, etc.

I am not a big user or follower of folks on twitter.  However, I did find a handy use for twitter.  Since I have connections from my Blackberry and IM to twitter, it is fairly convenient for me to put something in twitter.  My company pays for millage to any other office or offsite visit required of its employees.  So I often queue up several trips before I file an expense report.  If I go many times in short period of time I find that I often forget the dates and purpose for my trips.  To help me remember, every time I go offsite, I just enter a twitter message. Then I login to twitter when it’s time to do an expense report and I can easily find which days I went to each place.  Kinda neat.

Thought this might be useful.

 Some people who read this will think I have come down with a case of Technophobia or Xenophobia.  It’s not true.  I have hit on issues with being distracted in past posts.  It is just that I have noticed it more recently. 

Disruptions, interruptions, distractions, and task switching has had a signficant impact to my quality of work. Whether it’s Instant Message, email, wandering coworkers or spouse, or the dog barking – it’s all happening too often for me. Or at least that’s the way I feel lately.  Maybe I’m just getting old, but I don’t that’s it.   There seems like less and less time is available to just think due to the demands place on people today.  The mantra in IT of doing much more with a lot less is a reality.

 This lack of time to think hinders some creativity which is reducing the return on investment employees are giving back to the company.  I have noticed recently two separate incidents with myself and in one my coworker that highlighted the few cracks left for genuine thought analysis to seep out.  With me, I am totally surprised how much I enjoy the silence and time to think during my daily shower.  For some reason, which I know in reality it isn’t the only time, but it feels like the only quiet time during my day.  Additionally, many of the solutions to both personal and professional issues have come to me in the shower.  Some days, it might be best for the company if I worked from the shower all day.  Someone get me me a shower chair and my laptop!

The occurrence with my coworker was that he discover a problem with something he had setup.  Which is not anything groundbreaking, it was where and how.  He was literally sleeping, woke up and thought that’s not going to work then jumped right out of bed.  That dude must not be getting enough time to focus on his work.  It’s just plain sad that the only times he and I seem to get the most thinking done is in bed or in the shower.

I want to visit upon a different view on one of my tips from a post back in January with ideas of what to do after being hired in IT.  In a effort to try to continually evaluate and present multiple facets to my thoughts, I wanted to describe an alternate view on tip #1. A colleague of mine, who can be at times a controversial figure within the organization, came back at me when I began discussing issues around a new member of the pack.

My coworker felt that a person with good intentions who made aggressive mistakes was a positive trait.  That the resulting “conflicts” would shape and mold both the environment and the new individual.  I didn’t agree at first, but after reflection on his words, I did find that he may have a valid perspective.  My only counterpoint to his was that, true genuine desire to make things better and aggressive mistakes have some value.  However, if you alienate everyone around you and they don’t want to even be around you, say nothing of cooperating with you, then what value does the aggressiveness ultimately provide?

A second incident of a new person violating tip #1 occurred just the other day.  It again, brought back my thoughts around the aggressive mistake point made above.  This new person, his first day I believe, started to hijack a meeting.  He did provide what sounded to me as valuable knowledge of a product that we are not familiar with.  So, on that level I was generally okay with his talking so much.  However, the wheels came off when he started to suggest things that aren’t standard for us and that’s when I knew he talked too much.  Your first day, don’t say how things should be without understanding the company and the environment first.  I’m sure he will provide value as he seems intelligent, but he must show some respect and maturity in seeking to understand before he seeks to be understood.

I did get the feeling with the newest, new guy that he is or was a consultant. This constant desire to demonstrate immediate value is the life blood of that role and may explain his behavior to me.