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Judging by Twitter this week, an awful lot of university faculty and staff have celebrated the return of the academic year with meeting, after meeting, after–you get the point. And surprisingly few of those tweeted comments seemed happy about it; most voiced implicit agreement with this cartoon: Meetings are an unproductive waste of time. (In part, this view follows naturally from academics’ “maker” perspective.)
The site’s a little new to bring the bad news in this way, but, believe me, it’s because I love you all: If you’re consistently in bad meetings, it’s time to look in the mirror.
No one would accept consistently terrible classes. No one would continually repeat research procedures that didn’t yield interesting data. But there’s this weird assumption that meetings are just inherently bad and unimprovable.
Meetings are a problem when no one is accountable for them. Sometimes this is because the group’s purpose is ill-defined, sometimes it’s because people are looking to fulfill service obligations without actually giving their time, and sometimes it’s because people don’t know that there’s a better way. Here are some tips for changing the culture of meetings:
- Committee work is faculty self-governance. Period. When faculty shirk service work, it creates a vacuum for administrators to expand their power. (Probably by creating a vice-chancellor or something.)
- Be on time. (Chairs: Start on time.)
- Leave your iPhone/Blackberry/grading alone. (Chairs: You can make this a policy! It’s your meeting.)
- Prepare for the meeting. Read the agenda and any attached reports. Familiarize yourself with the minutes of the previous meetings. (Chairs: Enforce this by conducting discussion as if people were prepared. You can set expectations for meetings, too!)
- Never walk into a meeting if you don’t know how to recognize the meeting is over. (Is there an agenda? Is the meeting about a specific problem?)
- Meetings are for decisions and for distributing tasks, not “reports.” Chairs can control what gets on the agenda. Non-chairs can vote with their feet. (Note: This is usually not a problem if you write to the chair and ask for something specific to do by the next meeting. Of course, then you have to do it . . . )
- Be chair. If you don’t like the meeting culture on your campus, you probably have the power to change it. Rather than sitting there bored month after month, figure out a way to become chair. If enough people start running meetings competently, the culture will change.
- Always remember that the work of the university is too important to be left to people who like meetings. Meetings aren’t for grandstanding, free-associating, or random pontificating: They’re for deciding how the institution will operate. That’s worth trying to improve.
Some resources: 37 Signals: “You Still Want Meetings? Here’s How To Make Them Useful.”; Management Craft: “Don’t Let Meetings Rule!”; 43 Folders: “Running Meetings“
Nothing gets better until someone owns it. Meetings are no different. Why not make yours better?
Do you have a great strategy for meetings? Let us know in comments!
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29 Responses to Bad meetings are your fault
Nels - August 20, 2009 at 11:08 am
All I’ll say is I’m very lucky to be at a university that schedules almost all meetings the same time each week. There are no classes from 12-2 on Tuesdays or Thursdays. That’s the time for meetings for administrators, faculty, staff, and students. It makes my life, at least, much easier.
Michael Elliott - August 20, 2009 at 10:00 pm
No, but they may involve a lot of flattery.
And what a lovely site this is….
Michael Elliott - August 20, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Nice post. Yes, most meetings are badly run, but the whining about meetings in most academic circles is absurd. Don’t like meetings? Become a hermit. You work for a university, which means you actually have to learn to cooperate with other people. In my experience, a lot of the loudest whiners about meetings are those who are always vaguely wishing that “someone” would address or solve some problem.
That said, yes, most meetings in the academy are badly run. (Probably true of most meetings outside of the academy as well.) The best meetings — and I’ve been sitting in on a lot of non-academic meetings lately — start by clearly defining what the meeting hopes to accomplish, tries to accomplish it, and then follows up with everyone quickly to summarize the accomplishments (in timely minutes, something that also seems to elude many academics.)
The biggest difference between non-academic and academic meetings in my limited experience (of the former) , is that non-academics understand that the meetings they attend are part of their job, and that they are necessary. Many academics treat them as some terrible imposition on their time, and so don’t do the things you suggest. This makes them less productive.
Last point: if you think I’m going to give away all my meeting ninja tricks in the comment thread of a site like this, you are crazy.
Jason B. Jones - August 20, 2009 at 8:40 pm
It’s my understanding that many of those meeting ninja tricks involve catering. Not so?
Dina - August 20, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Oh I forgot one more thing. There should be a quick evaluation at the end of meeting. Nothing like a paper survey of the meeting productivity but go around room and ask everyone to answer with a 1 word feeling- How did they feel about the meeting? 1 word. Did we achieve our objective goal?
Brian Croxall - August 20, 2009 at 10:35 pm
To what extent is the perception on the part of academics that meetings aren’t part of their jobs a function of the tenure and promotion system, where service or faculty governance is viewed as negligible? I’m not saying that the way the university works are will necessarily produce a group of people that refuse to work well with one another…but if you work for an institution that promotes single-authored monographs over collaboration, there’s an endemic problem that will affect how everything functions.
Or something like that.
Dina - August 20, 2009 at 11:16 pm
All of these are pretty important. I’d also like to add a few points that I’ve observed and saw work.
You don’t want your meetings to become a “maintaining” meeting : ie. nothing really gets done, taking up to much time on updates, reports, review of past min reading etc, people go off course of agenda,… and not starting on time or ending on time.. and even though people are assigned roles.. not progressing, boring.. etc.. I think we all know bad meeting s when we see them . You get the drift.
Well 1 thing that I found works great is the decision making part of a meeting, i.e. having a pre-meeting about upcoming meeting to set the agenda and discuss what will happen during meeting. What decisions need to be made, speak to people prior to meeting on what their roles might be, what they think, look for input and if there are votes that need to be made on key decisions try to line up the votes before meeting. This could help minimize any problems that may arise that would throw meeting off course. And follow up is very important. Well you might ask.. “That seems time consuming. Well it’s not, especially when you don’t have to pull people together to have a pre-meeting, by phone calls, email, etc.. and talking to key people can be helpful. Meeting : What is the objective of meeting? Did you achieve goal? I hope this helps.
Jason - August 20, 2009 at 11:49 pm
The point about premeetings is well-taken, even if the name sounds like Dilbert.
It doesn’t have to be extremely formal: Even a quick check-in on the way into the room can sometimes focus people on what it they’re trying to achieve.
Derek - August 21, 2009 at 12:20 am
I won’t dispute your point that the tenure system is a big driver in the anti-meeting dynamic on campus, mainly because I try not to underestimate the impact of tenure systems on how faculty members approach their work.
However, here’s another possible reason: Many academics got into this business (consciously or subconsciously) because they like to be their own boss. They like the freedom they have to pursue their scholarly interests, set their own schedules (on a daily, weekly, and yearly basis), and teach their courses without interference.
I think this is one reason why it can be difficult for groups of faculty members (committees, departments, schools, etc.) to work together to get things done. This is, I think, particularly true in the humanities given the independent work typically involved in humanities scholarship. Faculty members in the sciences are a little more used to working in groups.
All the more reason to share strategies likes the ones shared here! Working in groups (in and out of meetings) is a skill that can be learned!
George H. Williams - August 21, 2009 at 8:37 am
+1 to Dina.
I’m on the board of a local nonprofit, and at the end of each meeting, every board member is asked to evaluate the meeting using a rubric designed to be quick and easy-to-use. The rubric also has space for written comments.
Brian Croxall - August 21, 2009 at 1:57 pm
And you’ll be posting this rubric when?
George H. Williams - August 21, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Good idea. Let me ask for permission to share it, and then I’ll post it here.
George H. Williams - August 21, 2009 at 4:21 pm
And now I’m thinking that it might not be a bad idea to use some kind of rubric like this periodically throughout the semester with students, maybe once a month? e.g.
On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your understanding of [concept x]?
Do you have any unresolved questions about [topic y]? If so, please write them in the space below.
Do you think the pace of the class is (a) too slow, (b) too fast, or (c) just right.
Have I made my expectations regarding the upcoming assignment clear? If not, what would you like me to explain further?
I don’t know that one would want to do this very often, but 3 times a semester–say–might prove really useful.
Hmm…
George - August 21, 2009 at 10:06 pm
And how did that work out?
Brian Croxall - August 21, 2009 at 9:27 pm
I’ve used Twitter to take a quick temperature with students to see if they got a concept or to know what they thought about how the day went.
(Big surprise. Brian used Twitter.)
Steve - August 22, 2009 at 10:39 am
Wow. It’s your fault. You’re not committed to the lofty goals of the institution. You’re not a team player. You’re not a people person. Stop whining.
Did you all go to management school? Because you really sound like someone’s boss.
I don’t know an academic who doesn’t work fifteen hours a day trying to keep on top of it all. So when the day fills up with meetings, it’s a recipe for stress. Think about it. I have dozens and dozens of tasks related to teaching and research — tasks that I must perform in order to fulfill the basic requirements of my job. When the day fills up with meetings, I have a real problem on my hands. Because at the end of the day, I will have more work (because more tasks will have been assigned to me), but I will have accomplished fewer of the tasks that have already been assigned. When it gets really bad — and I’m happy to share my darkened calendar, if you have any doubts about what “really bad” looks like — it doesn’t matter if Merlin Mann is running the meeting. I’m going to leave the office feeling stressed out and overwhelmed. To then be told that my problem is that I’m not a “team player.” I’ll think about that while I’m downing a tall glass of bourbon . . .
The problem, in other words, is stress. A chair who gave the above lecture to a junior faculty member would, in my opinion, be committing an act of cruelty. Academic work is like professional work everywhere: expectations are ill defined but apparently infinite. It’s not fair to blame people’s genuine anguish over this on some kind of personal failing. I try really hard not to whine, or complain, or be cranky about the whole thing. I really do. But I see the look in peoples’ eyes all the time at meetings: “There aren’t enough hours in the day. And two of them are now shot to hell on someone else’s todo list. I’m completely fucked.” And I have to admit that I get there more often than I’d like to.
I don’t know the solution to this problem. I think I’ve gotten better at managing things (so that “endless meetings” doesn’t pull me under). But put on a happy face? Be a team player? Think of England? Oh, come on.
George H. Williams - August 22, 2009 at 10:54 am
Steve, the above blog post is not telling you to stop whining and put on a happy face; it’s telling you that there are specific things that can be done to make meetings better.
Steve - August 22, 2009 at 11:02 am
I’m speaking more of the comment thread, actually. But on the subject of making meetings “better.” How does making them better address the problem I’m referring to? Am I going to walk out of them with fewer things to do? Am I going to somehow how regain the time I spent away from other responsibilities?
George H. Williams - August 22, 2009 at 11:06 am
Point taken.
What are your recommendations regarding academic meetings? That’s really what we’re after in this thread, I think. Is there anything an academic (especially the non-tenured, non-tenure-track ones) can do to avoid the problems you identify?
What have you found to be helpful strategies for dealing with meetings in your academic work life?
Steve - August 22, 2009 at 11:25 am
I was completely fascinated by Geoff Rockwell’s comment:
“I don’t mind meetings, I think it has to do with age and seniority. The older you are the more you like people and the more senior you are, the more you can use meetings to tell others what to do. God probably loves all meetings, that’s why he created the universe – one long meeting he can chair.”
I don’t want to suggest that Geoff’s career is in its twilight or anything like that, but there is obviously far less pressure on someone like him (a chaired professor with a long list of accomplishments). Pre-tenured people and non-tenured people are a different story. I strongly support department policies that radically limit the number of meetings for these people. There’s a downside to that, of course, because being in meetings is one of the ways that you get to know people and come to understand how the place works. But I think it’s a lot fairer to tell someone like Geoff to suck it up than to tell an assistant professor that their increasing irritation over meetings is a result of their lack of commitment to faculty self governance.
I also think Geoff’s other comment is really telling:
“People don’t like them because they usually haven’t done what they should have and the meeting will expose that.”
Yep. That’s really stressful, and we’re happy to convey our dissatisfaction with that through our own shame culture. We can see it as an opportunity for “looking in the mirror” and suggest new, Tayloristic ways to optimize meetings, but part of me wants to suggest compassion toward those who are angry and frustrated. And this (from the comments above) doesn’t do that:
“Don’t like meetings? Become a hermit. You work for a university, which means you actually have to learn to cooperate with other people. In my experience, a lot of the loudest whiners about meetings are those who are always vaguely wishing that “someone” would address or solve some problem.”
George H. Williams - August 22, 2009 at 11:39 am
At both schools where I’ve held tenure-track jobs, there is a policy (not sure if it’s official) of giving first-year faculty no service obligations whatsoever. It’s hard to add to someone’s “To do” list if you’re not allowed to.
Post-1st-year, I’ve tried to be very open about the amount of service I do (as well as my other obligations) so that I’m less likely to be asked to add to my responsibilities. And though I’ve never had the courage to give this strategy a try, I’ve often thought of answering a request for me to take something new on by saying, “Sure, let’s take a quick look at all of my other responsibilities so we can decide which one (needs to be reassigned to someone else | needs to be put on the back burner | needs to be put off indefinitely).”
I have to admit that I’m guilty of taking a laptop to meetings–something Jason admonishes us not to do–but it’s usually to take whatever notes I might need later, to research issues that are being talked about, or to send necessary emails related to the topic of that meeting. If I wait until the meeting is over to do that stuff it’s just going to eat into the time I’d be using for teaching or research and it’s just going to be less likely to get done, frankly.
In my unicorns-and-ice-cream world, meetings are places where we actually do things, not just places where we talk about the stuff we’ve done and the stuff we’re going to do. All reports are distributed ahead of time over email (and any questions about those reports are asked and answered ahead of time over email), and the meeting itself is reserved for voting, assigning tasks, and making some decisions, with unfocused discussions kept to a minimum.
Jason B. Jones - August 22, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Actually, Steve, I think a lot of the stress from meetings comes because nothing adequately specific ever gets done–which is horrible. Because then you’re wasting valuable time, feeling that something needs to get done, but no one’s really clear about what . . . it’s bad.
But affect alone–anger and frustration alone–doesn’t make anything better. Quite the contrary, really.
I’d never tell anyone just to put a happy face on it. Rather, there are often small things you can do that will make things more tolerable.
Derek - August 22, 2009 at 12:27 pm
When planning meetings, I’ve found it helpful to estimate how many dollars a meeting costs in terms of staff and faculty time. Making up numbers, let’s say you’ve got six participants in a one-hour meeting, each of whom makes $40,000 per year. Assuming a 40-hour work week and two weeks of vacation (I know, I know, I’m just ballparking here), that works out to about $20 per hour.
So a one-hour meeting with six of these folks costs $120. More people with high salaries and longer meetings means more money, of course. After doing this kind of estimate, ask yourself, what are we going to accomplish in this meeting that’s worth that much?
George H. Williams - August 22, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Interesting. Do you ever ask that question of others? Put another way, have you shared this calculation with the people who attend (or better yet, who call) the meetings?
Derek - August 22, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Once or twice. They found it sobering. Just think about your average departmental faculty meeting. Is the business being done work the investment of university resources?
I also find it helpful (as do others above, judging from their comments) to consider what can only be done in a face-to-face meeting and what can be accomplished via email or in one-on-one meetings. Facilitating a productive two-way meeting is a lot easier than facilitating a productive eight-way meeting, so I find it helpful to be extremely strategic with larger meetings.
Derek - August 22, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Also, if you’re running a meeting, it’s useful to clarify before and at the start of the meeting what role you expect others to play. Are you sharing some information with them–perhaps information about a decision that’s already been made–and giving them a chance to ask clarifying questions? (And, if so, could this be done via email instead?) Or are you inviting them to offer opinions and objections about a possible plan of action or decision? If so, are they there to brainstorm at the beginning of a decision-making process or are they there just to throw up red flags in case you’re about to walk off some cliff?
Making participants aware of the roles you’re expecting them to play can go a long way to making a meeting more productive all around.
jmcclurken - August 22, 2009 at 10:45 pm
As someone who has chaired a number of committees over the last 10 years I take very seriously my responsibility as chair to make sure that meetings have an agenda sent out at least 24 hours in advance, don’t last longer than they should, don’t include purely informational lecturing (that could be emailed), and takes seriously the time commitments of the people in the room. I want everyone to leave the room thinking that we got something significant done, that there are clear goals for the next meeting, and that their time hasn’t been wasted. [Admittedly, I don't know that I always achieve all of that, but I continue to believe the goals are good ones.]
Brian Croxall - August 22, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Hmm. We’ve discovered how far the conversation can nest.
But taking temperatures this way with students worked very well. Since they could dash off a response to me on their cell phones, rather than having to look me in the eye and tell me that I sucked or had been great, I actually got responses.
Theresa Vaughan - August 23, 2009 at 8:08 am
At my university, I’ve noticed a distinct difference between types of meetings, depending upon who is holding the meetings. At the department level, we generally have a specific task to complete, or decision to make. Meetings are infrequent, and they rarely last more than an hour to 90 minutes. Seeing each other on a daily basis, we understand that we are all pressed for time. Meetings are necessary to set policy or solve specific problems and as long as they are infrequent, we don’t grumble much about them.
Meeting set by the upper level administration tend to be more frequent and less productive. Sometimes they are called to communicate things which could be conveyed through e-mail, sometimes they are called to get faculty “input” which is rarely included in final decisions. They are often called at times which are incompatible with the university standard course schedule.
I think the reasons for the difference are twofold:
First, those who are strictly administrators are part of administrative culture. Meetings are their job, so they are less focused and often much longer (as a department chairperson, I recently attended eight hours of meetings in a two day period for “back to school”–the department meeting ran 90 minutes and we got more accomplished).
Second, by holding endless meetings, they can point to the fact that they are involved in “shared governance,” when in fact they mostly talk at faculty rather than listen to them.
I have never minded attending meetings which have a reasonable defined task to complete, especially when that task has tangible benefits to faculty or students. I do mind attending meetings which are overly long, poorly defined, packed with useless busy work in the name of group input, or which have no tangible benefit.