The Boss as Human Shield: Protect People from Your Own Worst Instincts Too

Over at HBR online today, one of the articles they are featuring is my piece on The Boss as Human Shield.  One point the article makes, and that I emphasize in Good Boss, Bad Boss , is that your job as a boss isn't just to protect employees from other idiots -- it is also to protect them your own idiocy.  At or near the top of the list are bad meetings, too many meetings, and meetings that run too long.  The picture above of a boring meeting made me laugh and and made me think.  If the people at the meetings you run look like that, you might want to think about having fewer meetings and changing how the are done (see the example here and here of an all-hands meeting at Timbuk2 that our students at the d.school helped fix.. there were people sleeping at the meeting too before it was changed).

Certainly, meetings are sometimes necessary, but are often ran badly.  What do you do to hold just the right number of meetings and to run them effectively? 

Comments

[bob jain]

Who is protecting the boss from his own idiocy? --->that's a million dollar question

[Scot Herrick]

Missing in all this, I think, are two important considerations. One is defining the purpose of the meeting -- is it an informational meeting, brainstorming meeting, decision-making meeting, etc.

People come into a given meeting, agenda or not, and do not know the purpose...and then get frustrated because of all the differences (why can't we make a decision???).

Second, not clearly defining the next actions each person needs to take as a result of the meeting. The meeting just ends with no forward movement or work to be done...except to have another meeting.

If people are not clear and accountable for the defined next actions from a meeting, they won't get done.

Meetings are one of the poorest run management practices in the history of the planet...

[Dan (Leadership Freak)]

Bob,

Create a culture where everyone knows that discussion time is not endless and the purpose of the meeting is making decisions that express organizational objectives.

I've found that decision driven meetings that run at an unrushed yet quick pace are enjoyable and useful to all.

Best Regards,

Leadership Freak,
Dan Rockwell

[Patrick]

In my opinion, meeting itself does not have any problems. The main problems are the purpose of each meeting, who must be attended, how long we are going to discuss or report, whether everyone has fully prepared for this meeting... Otherwise, this kind of meeting will be meaningless and waste everyone's valuable time.

[Account Deleted]

I think there would be no magic number about the number of meetings to be held, but we can get some insight from the following.

Before deciding on 'How' of a certain thing, we need to think out the 'Why' and 'What.' Like the preceding, a meeting is nothing more than one of tools equivalent to 'How,' so that the most important thing is to fully recognize its 'Why' and 'What' in advance.

If we focus on the 'Why' and 'What' of a meeting, that enables us to easily find out how to manage the meeting in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.

[BryanB]

1) Default to no meetings
2) Continually ask if we need this many meetings, and for this long
3) Agendas whenever possible
4) Clear meeting leader
5) Stick to start and stop times
6) Emphasize meeting with customers, not internally
7) Emphasize ad hoc meetings, not recurring ones

[Zeta]

Who is protecting the boss from his own idiocy?