The Virtues of Standing-Up: In Meetings and Elsewhere

I was thinking back to some of the experiences I had over the last few weeks teaching classes to both Stanford students and executives, and watching some of my fellow teachers and colleagues in action.  I realized that one of the hallmarks, one of the little signs I have learned to look for, is whether people are standing-up or sitting down.  We all learn in school that being a "good student" means that we ought to stay in our seats and be good listeners.  But I kept seeing situations where standing-up was a sign of active learning and leadership.  To give you a a few examples, I noticed that when my course assistants stood up and walked around the classroom, they were more likely to be engaged by students and to create enthusiasm and energy. I noticed that student teams in my classes that stood-up when brainstorming, prototyping, or arguing over ideas seemed more energetic and engaged. 

And I noticed when watching master innovation teacher and coach Perry Klebahn in action at the Stanford d. School that he hardly ever sits down for long, he is always on the prowl, walking over to members of his team to ask how things are going, to give a bit of advice, and to find out what needs to be fixed -- and is constantly walking over to to watch teams of students or executives who are working on creative tasks to see if they need a bit advice, coaching, or a gentle kick in the ass to get unstuck. (In fact, that is Perry listening to David Kelley while they were coaching teams -- David is the d schools main founder).

Of course, there are times when sitting down is best: During long meetings, when you want to unwind, when relaxed contemplation is in order.  But these thoughts inspired a couple questions that many of us -- including me -- need to ask ourselves about the groups we work in and lead: Would it help if I stood up?  Would it help if we all stood up?

This all reminded me of this passage from Good Boss, Bad Boss (from the chapter on how the best bosses "Serve as a Human Shield"):

In Praise of Stand-Up Meetings

I’ve been fascinated by stand-up meetings for years.  It started when Jeff Pfeffer and I were writing Hard Facts, our book on evidence-based management.  We often met in Jeff’s lovely house, typically starting-out in his kitchen.  But we usually ended-up in Jeff’s spacious study -- where we both stood, or more often, Jeff sat on the lone chair, and I stood.  Meetings in his study were productive but rarely lasted long.  There was no place for me sit and the discomfort soon drove me out the door (or at least back to the kitchen).  We wondered if there was research on stand-up meetings, and to our delight, we found an experiment comparing decisions made by 56 groups where people stood-up during meetings to 55 groups where people sat down.  These were short meetings, in the 10 to 20 minute range, but the researchers found big differences.  Groups that stood-up took 34% less time to make the assigned decision, and there were no significant differences in decision quality between stand-up and sit-down groups.

Stand-up meetings aren’t just praised in cute academic studies.  Robert Townsend advised in Up the Organization, “Some meetings should be mercifully brief. A good way to handle the latter is to hold the meeting with everyone standing-up. The meetees won’t believe you at first. Then they get very uncomfortable and can hardly wait to get the meeting over with.”

I keep finding good bosses who use stand-up meetings to speed things along.  One is David Darragh, CEO of Reily, a New Orleans-based company that specializes in southern foods and drinks.  They produce and market dozens of products such as Wick Fowler’s 2-Alarm Chili, CDM Coffee and Chicory, No Pudge Fat Free Brownie Mix, and Luzianne Tea.  David and I were having a rollicking conversation about how he works with his team. I started interrogating closely after he mentioned the 15 minute stand-up meeting held in his office four mornings a week. We since exchanged a series of emails about these meetings.  As David explains:

“The importance of the stand-up meeting is that it can be accomplished efficiently and, therefore, with greater frequency.  Like many areas of discipline, repetition begets improved results.  The same is true with meetings.  The rhythm that frequency generates allows relationships to develop, personal ticks to be understood, stressors to be identified, personal strengths and weaknesses to be put out in the light of day, etc.  The role of stand-up meetings is not to work on strategic issues or even to resolve an immediate issue.  The role is to bubble up the issues of the day and to identify the ones that need to be worked outside the meeting and agree on a steward to be responsible for it.   With frequent, crisp stand up meetings, there can never be the excuse that the opportunity to communicate was not there.  We insist that bad news travels just as fast as good news”

The team also has a 90 minute sit-down meeting each week, where they dig into more strategic issues.  But the quick daily meetings keep the team connected, allow them to spot small problems before they become big ones, and facilitate quick and effective action.  

Stand-up meetings aren’t right for every meeting or boss.  As we saw in the last chapter in the broken Timbuk2 all-hands meeting, part of the problem with that 45 or so minute gathering was there was no place for most people to sit, which fueled the group’s grumpiness and impatience.  The key lesson is that the best bosses constantly look for little ways to use everyone’s time and energy more efficiently and respectfully.  They keep unearthing traditions, procedures, or other things that needlessly slow people down.  In many cases, these speed bumps have been around so long that people don’t even realize they exist or that they do more harm than good.   Try to look at what you and your people do through fresh eyes.  Bring in someone who “doesn’t know any better,” and ask them: What can I do to help my people travel through the day with fewer hassles? 

What do you think?  How does standing-up help in what you do?  When is it a bad idea?

P.S. Check out this Wall Street Journal article on stand-up meetings as part of the "Agile" software development process, particularly the "daily scrum."

P.P.S. Don't miss Jason Yip's article on how to run a stand-up meeting and how to tell when it isn't going well.

 

Comments

[Paul Maloney]

A friend who is an agile project manager found that people were still talking too long in meetings so he started bringing a large bowling ball to stand up meetings. When you speak, you hold the ball...

[Nigel Collin - Thinkativity]

Great post.

There's a great example of this in a business in Sydney called Atlassian, Their WIP meetings are short and standing. As a 'ideas' facilitator, I employ this always.

Thanks for the article

[Jchyip]

I wrote a fairly long article about subtle details of stand-ups in the Agile context: http://martinfowler.com/articles/itsNotJustStandingUp.html

[BizfixUK]

Hey it’s tough for us like-to-stand-in-meeting types. I think better when I’m on my feet, I make most of my phone calls walking around the office (hands-free helps) and if I can’t doodle on a whiteboard occasionally or even gaze out the window my thinking slows down. What this looks like to the untrained eye is that we like-to-stand-in-meeting types are somehow not concentrating, or not taking the meeting seriously.

Seriously if you find me sitting stock still looking like I’m paying rapt attention I’m probably being less efficient than if you could embrace my walking round while I talk to you approach.

Am I alone in this predilection?

[Jeffrey Cufaude]

Standing obviously engages the whole body in a way that sitting does not and often leads to more animated gestures and different physical proximity in a group. Moreover, if people are engaged in creating something or looking at something, standing changes what you see and your relationships to the object, often triggering fresh thinking.

As a facilitator, I find it particularly useful to toss in some discussions during a long day that invite people to conduct brief stand-up conversations around a topic in a self-organizing fashion or to partner up with someone from another table and talk about a topic. As one of the other commenters shared, we need to be sensitive to people's physical capabilities. I try to make the initial invitation for the activity more inclusive by inviting people to "gather around" and stand if they find that comfortable. Most do, but some don't since it isn't expressed initially as a requirement.

When I was on the staff of a professional association, we started each day with a brief all-staff standup meeting with a cup of coffee, sharing quick updates and getting brief input from our colleagues on critical questions. It was a great way to engage in the morning.

[Bob Sutton]

Mary and Ksol,

Thanks for making such thoughtful comments. Mary, your comment about hidden disabilities is really important and I am so glad you added it. Indeed, sometimes people don't act as we want and expect just because we don't know enough about their challenges. Ksol, I agree completely about the point of the meeting. Indeed some years back or students did an intervention into a broken company meeting -- ironically Perry was CEO at the time -- and among the biggest problems was that the point was clear (and time management was bad). As part of the solution, it changed from a stand up to sit down meeting -- but the problem was it was really too long for stand-up given what they needed to accomplish. Thanks again to both of you, really great comments.

[Mary]

The idea is not bad, but you need to be careful that you don't establish a tradition that accidentally makes it difficult for people with hidden disabilities.

I am chronically ill. Some days, I cannot stand for more than 5 minutes at a time without pain. I work in a very supportive organization where I am open about my challenges, with no problems. But I have been in a class once that (unexpectedly) involved group work standing around the board, with people unfamiliar to me. I had to sit down and someone immediately questioned that, in a disapproving tone, because this looked like I was not fully participating. And, in fact, I wasn't: once I was below everyone's eye level, it was very difficult to contribute to the discussion. The room was not set up to allow everyone to sit down around me, either.

I am fine with asking for accommodation as needed, but it inevitably puts you on the spot. So I'd rather that my manager had tools to improve meetings that do not rely on (even minor) physical discomfort, because a slight inconvenience for most people may in fact be a big problem for one person, and there can be many reasons of why they would not want to call attention to it.

[ksol]

To a certain extent, I don't think it matters as much whether you sit or stand as much as whether you have a point to the meeting, and the time/space/seating (or not) arrangement is appropriate to what needs to be covered.

We've just gone from a standup meeting for my workgroup to a sitdown, and people seem happier. The meetings are better organized, and setting aside some sit-down time allows us to spend about half of each on training. We only officially meet once a month. If we don't have an agenda or purpose, I hope I'll have enough sense to cancel the meeting for the month.

When we did standups, because they were supposed to be short, we really didn't have a lot prepared, and they became pointless. Our workgroup seems to like to set aside a little more time if they get a little more depth out of the meeting. They'd rather have a 1-hour meeting where something is accomplished and they learn something, as opposed to a 15-20 minute meeting where they show up and aren't sure why.